Tech Olive

For a game that’s over two years old and only costs a little over $32 on Amazon, it sure doesn’t make sense why the Mac App Store priced Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare at a rough $49.99 (same price when it first released). In any case, it’s nice that Mac users can now get a plethora of video games from some place other than Steam, especially since Steam doesn’t offer CoD4 on Mac just yet.

via [TechCrunch]

If you still haven’t succumbed to the peer pressure, now is the time. You can purchase Modern Warfare 2 via Steam for $40.19, 33% off of the original $59.99 price tag. Both pieces of DLC are still on sale as well for $7.49 each, 50% off the original price.

[Steam Page]

I gotta say, $15 is a little much for just a handful of new maps. Luckily, you won’t have to pay that much for the next week because Steam has both DLC packs for Modern Warfare 2 are 50% off. From now until October 11th, you can get the Resurgence Pack and the Stimulus Package for just $7.49 a piece.

In celebration of The Stimulus Package PC release, Modern Warfare 2 is hosting another free weekend, as well as offering gamers double XP. You can start pre-loading now for the free weekend and the double XP actually started last night, so get playing! Now, here’s hoping that Activision will do something about the massive community of hackers in the game.

[Press Release]

The “Infinity Ward Employee Group” (a group compiled of 38 individuals) filed a lawsuit this morning against Activision for breech of contract on the grounds that they were never paid their proper royalties for Modern Warfare 2‘s sales.

“Activision owes my clients approximately $75 million to $125 million dollars,” said one the the group’s lawyers. And the lawsuit even goes as far to claim that “Activision has withheld most of the money to force many of my people to stay, some against their will, so that they would finish the delivery of Modern Warfare 3. That is not what they wanted to do. Many of them. My clients’ entitled to their money. Activision has no right to withhold their money — our money.”

While this seems like a rather unrealistic claim, it is granted some believability in light of the recent resignations from the Infinity Ward studios the past couple of weeks. The lawsuit even goes as blunt to flat out say that “Activision withheld the property of the IWEG in an attempt to keep the employees hostage so that Activision could reap the benefit of the completion of Modern Warfare 3.”

G4TV made contact with Activision for comment on the matter and Activision had the following to say:

“Activision believes the action is without merit. Activision retains the discretion to determine the amount and the schedule of bonus payments for MW2 and has acted consistent with its rights and the law at all times. We look forward to getting  judicial confirmation that our position is right.”

via [G4TV]

According to G4‘s source at Infinity Ward, three artists (including the studio’s lead artist) have left the development studio.  With Infinity Ward’s “death toll” somewhere around 20, it’s becoming hard to believe that the studio will be able to stay afloat without some massive restructuring and restaffing. It’s also safe to say that the Infinity Ward Call of Duty games will never be the same and reports state that two more ex-Infinity Ward employees have joined West and Zampella’s Respawn Entertainment.

via [G4TV]

In a move that hardly surprises us, Activision has officially announced that PC gamers will have to pay for Modern Warfare 2 DLC, starting with the May 4th release of the Stimulus Package. The good news, however, is that by pre-ordering through Steam, you can save 10%.

The Stimulus Package DLC for Modern Warfare 2 on PC is 10% off on Steam if you pre-order before the May 4th release! — Robert Bowling on Twitter.

[Store Page]

It comes at no surprise that other ex-Infinity Ward members would join West and Zampella at their newly formed studio, Respawn Entertainment. According to Game Informer, previous Infinity Ward workers Mackey McCandlish, Jon Shiring, Todd Alderman, Rayme Vinson, Chris Cherubini, Mark Grisby and John Paul Messerly have all joined Respawn with their same job titles as they previously held with Infinity Ward.

It’s exciting to see what the awesome team behind the Modern Warfare titles will create under their new employment at Respawn. Here’s hoping they don’t go console exclusive.

via [Game Informer]

After yesterday’s reports of Infinity Ward losing more staff, Kotaku reports that even more Infinity Ward veterans have left the studio today. According to reports, lead developers Steve Fukuda and Zied Reike resigned today along with programmer Rayme Vinson and lead artist Chris Cherubini. Despite these reports, Activision stated in an interview with Gamasutra that Infinity Ward is running at full capacity and they “look forward to continuing to work with Infinity Ward’s deep bench of proven talent on exciting new projects.”

via [Kotaku]

Last month, Activision fired long-time Infinity Ward veterans of the CoD series Vince Zampella (CEO of Infinity Ward) and Ethan West (COO of Infinity Ward). The pair just recently announced the opening of their new studio, Respawn Entertainment, which will be backed by Electronic Arts, a fierce rival of Activision.

Now, it seems Activision is feeling the sting of this move as programmer Jon Shiring, senior animator Bruce Ferriz and MW2 lead designer Mackey McCandlish have announced their resignation and Todd Alderman and Francesco Gigliotti announced earlier this month that they had left the studio.

It’s hard to see a developer like Infinity Ward fall apart and it makes you wonder about the future of the Call of Duty series. Perhaps Treyarch will take a much larger role in the future.

via [IGN]